Twice in a Lifetime
by Batasyl
Summary: Sometimes when time and fate doesn't agree, true love will find a way.


**Hello readers, before you start reading I want to thank the people that left their comments to each story that I had published here. As a writer I really appreciate the comments.**

 **I want to make a note that I DO NOT OWN Girl Meets World.**

 **I do not really have a "ship" per say but as I mentioned before I want to balance the universe (at least the fanfiction universe) so I tend to write RUCAS stories.**

 **For those RUCAS fans out there here's another story for you. Hope you like it. Please leave your comment.**

 **WARNING: This story is borderline Mature.**

 **xxxxxxx**

Pain clutched Lucas Friar's heart.

Twenty-five years had passed. Why did he still hurt so much? Maybe because it was exactly twenty-five years ago _today._

His hand trembled as he reached for the keys in the ignition. He should start the car and drive away. Coming here had been a terrible idea.

But it hadn't really been an idea; he hadn't thought about it at all, in fact. He'd just slid behind his steering wheel and started driving, as if by instinct. Or perhaps it had been more like a compulsion, like the East River had compelled him to come here today.

Or had _sh_ _e?_

For the past twenty-five years, she had haunted him—a ghost in his heart and on his conscience. No matter how much his father and the psychologist he'd brought him to have tried to convince him that it hadn't been his fault, he had never stopped blaming himself.

His fingers dropped away from the keys. He owed it to her to honor the silver anniversary of her death.

He reached now for the flowers that he had bought in the same way he'd driven from John F Kennedy airport to the Brooklyn Bridge: as if he'd been following hypnotic commands rather than his own free will.

He glanced down at the flowers he held. Yellow daisies. The flowers reminded him of her smile, her openness and uncomplicated beauty inside and out. He should have given these flowers to her then. But he couldn't bring them to her anymore.

Only if he'd been hypnotized, it had happened twenty-five years ago when he'd stared into a girl's bright hazel eyes and unknowingly fallen deeply, irrevocably in love with her. His heart still ached with that love…and regret. So he had to bring the flowers here…to her.

Drawing in a deep breath, he opened the door and stepped onto the asphalt. Gravel gritted beneath the soles of his shoes.

She had died here—in this bridge, in this very spot. Even though twenty-five years had passed, he remembered in vivid detail how she'd died. They'd been so young, him just sixteen and she fifteen, and so excited that they had run up to the bridge without realizing that a speeding car was fast approaching. It happened so fast that he and his friends froze. Not her though, she pushed them out of the way and took the blunt of the impact.

Lucas shuddered. She'd died here. And her mother had spread her ashes in the East River, sprinkled off the very bridge that he now stood in front of.

The cool wind picked up. Spring had come late this year, the cold weather hanging on even into May, so the path was deserted but for him. The cold didn't affect Lucas; he had already been chilled to the bone before he'd stepped out of his car.

His legs trembling, he crossed the walk and climbed the couple of steps to the bridge. The brilliant rays of the sun blinded him as it slid slowly from the sky to drop onto the shimmering surface of the water. He closed his eyes, welcoming the heat on his face.

But it wasn't just the heat of the sun he felt…but of someone's loving gaze.

 _She_ was here.

 _He_ was here. She'd hoped he would come to her, that the connection between them was as powerful as she had remembered. But it had been twenty-five years. He could have forgotten all about her, or blocked those painful memories from his mind.

But here he was, standing before her with his face bathed in the glow of the setting sun. Twenty-five years ago he had been a cute boy. Now he was a man of such masculinity that he took her breath away.

His skin was golden and smooth. His hair was also golden now, a darker blond than it had been years ago, the color richer and deeper. His eyes were closed, his lashes lying thick and dark against his cheeks. She needed to see into his eyes—into his soul. But he kept them shut, his face lifted to the sun.

She couldn't stop herself from reaching out to him. It had been so long since she had touched him. She skimmed her fingertips along the edge of his jaw.

He gasped, but instead of pulling back he leaned closer, and his breath feathered across her lips. "I must be dreaming," he murmured. "This must be a dream…"

Her memories of him had always seemed like a dream. But maybe that had been because the memories really weren't _hers._ But he was. It didn't matter how many years had passed since she'd seen him; her soul—her heart—would always know him.

But would he know her once he opened his eyes? Would he realize that she was the girl he had once liked?

She slid her thumb up over his chin and then across his bottom lip. On a shaky sigh, he parted his lips. But he didn't open his eyes. He just murmured a name. "Riley…"

It wasn't her name anymore. Not in this life…

On the outside, she wasn't the girl he had liked. He wouldn't recognize her face. But maybe he would recognize her touch.

Her kiss.

She reached up and closed the distance between his mouth and hers. Her hands still cupping his face, she tipped his chin down. Then she brushed her lips gently across his in a whisper-soft kiss.

Lucas never wanted to awaken; he never wanted this dream to end. It was so real. He could actually feel the warmth of her breath as she sighed against his mouth before deepening the kiss. His lips pressed against hers, parting them.

He could taste her—sweet, minty and deeply feminine.

Feminine? Riley had tasted of sunshine and vanilla—like a girl, not a woman.

Confused, he stepped back, breaking the connection, and opened his eyes. To a stranger.

Who the hell had he just kissed? She wasn't a figment from a dream. Or a ghost. Tall and willowy with dark hair and fair skin, she was flesh and blood. And real.

And oddly familiar to him. Somehow, even her kiss and her touch had felt familiar, even though he had never seen her before. She wasn't a girl, as Riley had been. She wasn't anything like Riley with her brown hair and twinkling hazel eyes. She should have been afraid of him; he was, after all, a stranger to her. But he sensed that she was more afraid of her own reaction to him.

 _What the hell had she done? Had she lost her mind?_

Heat rushed to her face, but it wasn't from the sun. It had already sunk beneath the surface of the river. She stood now in the twilight, in the shadow of the blond-haired stranger. A stranger who she'd touched. Who she'd kissed.

The heat of embarrassment turned to anger. "Who are you?"

"Sorry 'bout that," she said, but her lips curved into a slight grin despite the apology she uttered.

His anger increased, warming skin that the brisk wind had chilled. "Why— Why did you kiss me?"

"Why did you kiss me back?" she challenged, her gaze intent on his face.

"I thought you were someone else." Tears stung his eyes, but he blinked them away—just as he needed to push away the memories of Riley again.

So many times over the years he had tried to forget about her. He had attempted to move on, as his father had begged him to do. He'd put his parents through so much, even after he'd become an adult. Even still, here he was, twenty-five years later, bringing Riley flowers and imagining her with him, waiting for him, kissing him.

And he'd wound up making a fool of himself by kissing some strange woman. His anger faded to regret. He wanted to forget the momentary lapse in judgment had ever happened. But his lips tingled yet and he could still taste her.

"I'm sorry." Putting more distance between them, he stepped back again and moved around the woman. He wouldn't let whoever she was distract him from the reason he had come.

But as he walked to the end of the bridge, her footsteps echoed behind him. Was she following him?

 _Don't worry about her. Do what you came to do._

The wind whipped around, tugging at his hair and the bouquet of flowers. One daisy wrestled free of his grasp and blew behind him. He didn't glance back. Instead he focused on the water below the bridge. Leaning over the railing, he dropped the bouquet of flowers onto the dark surface.

"Forgot one," a sweet voice murmured. She dangled the lost daisy over her shoulder.

His fingers trembling, he reached for the flower but she held tight to the stem.

"I kissed you," she said, "because you're Lucas. The first boy I ever liked."

 _Riley's words…_ They reached inside him, squeezing his heart tight in a painful clasp. How did this woman know what he had shared with no one else? He turned toward her, fear squeezing his heart now, and asked, "Who the hell are you?"

She had wanted to see Lucas' eyes again but not like this. Not wide with fear. But there was anger, too, in his gaze and in his flushed skin.

"What is your name?" he demanded.

"Lorraine Riley Hunter." At least, that was her name now.

His brow furrowed as he tried to place her. Her pulse quickened at the thought that he might have heard of her. But then, it was quite unlikely that he had. But no sense of recognition eased the fear and suspicion in his eyes.

"How do you know who _I_ am?" he asked.

"I didn't, not for sure," she admitted, "until you showed up here, on _this_ date, with those flowers."

She had waited all day for him. And as the hours had dragged on, her hope drained from her. She'd nearly accepted that he'd forgotten all about her. She'd decided to give him until after the sun set…and then he had appeared. Finally.

"How do you know about the flowers, about this day?" His brow furrowed again as he tried to figure out how she could have a dead girl's secrets. "Are you a friend of the Matthews?"

A laugh caught in her throat. "My last name doesn't sound familiar? Do you remember Shawn Hunter? He's my dad."

"Did he tell you about the flowers? Did he know about them?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No. My father doesn't know anything. I'm twenty-five. Today."

He sucked in a breath. "Then there's no way you could know anything about…"

"The flowers? That you and I have a special connection?" It was because she had been born twenty-five years ago today that she _did_ know everything.

She gazed beyond him toward the bridge and she shuddered. "She died twenty-five years ago today."

Apparently she knew where she'd died but what about the how? Or why? "Yes—here, in this bridge."

He shook his head, dismissing her. "Everyone knows that I like Riley. We were close. She is one of the most important people in my life."

"Is? Maybe you meant was," she said.

He stared up at her, "I meant what I said."

"That's nice to know Lucas because you're still the most important person to me and as promised I will always be here for you."

His head pounded with confusion. "That makes no sense."

"It makes perfect sense," she insisted, "if you believe in reincarnation."

She hugged herself, chilled by the cold evening breeze and his words. "Reincarnation? That's nonsense."

"Is it? You don't think it could be possible?" she asked.

"No."

She shook her head. "Fair enough. No one really believes me anyway. Not my family, not my sister and definitely not the Matthews." A muscle twitched along the woman's jaw. She stepped closer. "Do you know that the Matthews stopped visiting us? My dad was very sad about it. Apparently I remind them so much of Riley but they can't believe that I am Riley or that I have Riley's memories of them and just like I have Riley's memories of you."

Lucas backed away, unable to accept what she was saying. He had been through too much today, too many emotions and old memories.

And that kiss…

Her eyes glittered as if she was remembering that kiss, too. But that was her memory, Lorraine's, not Riley's.

"I don't understand what you're saying…"

"The day Riley Matthews died, I was born," she said, "with her soul."

"This is too much," he said. "Too incredible."

"You won't consider that I might be telling the truth?"

"I can't…" He'd already lost Riley once. Already mourned her for so long. No, he couldn't consider that she might have come back, because it meant he could lose her all over again. "I just can't deal with this…" Like he had before, he stepped around her.

But she didn't let him pass her. She caught his arm, her fingers warm and gentle. "And I can't let you go. I've looked for you for years, Lucas. I need to talk to you."

"I'm sorry. But you have to let me go."

Anger bristled in Lorraine, stealing away her common sense. "10 minutes. Just give me ten minutes of your time and you can be miserable and turn into Texas Lucas again."

He swallowed down the nerves that rose to his throat, threatening to choke him. "I want to know why you're lying."

"I'm not," she replied so calmly and reasonably that he almost made him believe her.

"But it's impossible…"

"It would be impossible for me to know what I do about you if I didn't have Riley's soul and her memories of you."

She struggled to draw a deep breath. "Riley fell down on your lap in the subway the first time you two met. You were the first boy she ever liked. Her first date. Her first boyfriend, even though you broke up just after a couple of hours dating. You mean the world to her."

"She means the world to me too," he agreed. "She was too young to die."

Tears stung her eyes. "Yes, she was."

"She shouldn't have died," he reminded Lorraine.

"Lucas, don't do that. Don't blame yourself. I did what I did because I love you guys and I don't want anything bad to happen to any of you." she said. "No regrets. Except for one."

"Us. We never had closure," he said, as if he'd read her mind. "The feelings are still here." He touched his chest, rubbing a knuckle over his black sweater. Then he reached for her, touching a fingertip to her heart.

It thudded against her ribs in reaction, and she sucked in a breath. She needed to step back. Needed to run and leave. But common sense had truly deserted her.

She stayed right where she was, with his hand on her heart.

She leaned over and cupped his cheek. "My soul actually belongs to you, Lucas."

 _Didn't he feel it, too?_ The connection, the pull between them, was so strong that it took all of Lorraine's control not to hug and kiss him.

But his eyes were wide again—not with fear or suspicion but something far more frightening: concern. "How can you be so sure?" he asked.

She pressed her fingers over his lips. "Because you are my soul mate." Her heart is swelling with the emotion even now, aching with the intensity of it.

"We were kids," he said with a sad smile. "We were too young to understand what love really is."

"Remember when I told you that I want you to be always there? That I don't ever want to lose you? That I will always be there for you? Believing in you? If that wasn't love, what was it?" she pressed.

"Infatuation. Puppy love. We would have eventually outgrown it and each other."

"So why are you here Lucas? Why bring yellow daisies? You're the only one who knows that's my favorite flower."

"Because she was too young to die." He drew in a deep breath. "And because I feel responsible."

"It wasn't your fault," she reminded him.

He squeezed his eyes shut as if trying to block out the pain. "I should have saved you…"

"Maybe you're right," she said, defeat bowing her shoulders. "Maybe you're not my soul mate."

Lucas opened his eyes then and stared up at her in surprise, as if he hadn't expected her to give up so easily. She hadn't expected it herself. But he'd just answered the question that had haunted Lorraine since she'd recovered the memories of Riley's short life.

"You don't love me," she said, "at least not the same kind of love that I feel for you."

And maybe because of that, she shouldn't have come back now…to him.

Riley had given up on him. Lucas had seen it on her face when she'd turned away from the railing and started toward the parking lot. He couldn't blame her, but he'd still been disappointed that she'd given up so easily.

He'd also been relieved that he'd caught her before she'd left for good. And so he'd launched himself at her.

His arms closed tight around her, holding her close against his madly pounding heart. He kissed her hungrily.

She trembled against him and he lifted his head, breaking the contact between their clinging lips.

Panting for breath, he asked, "Are you all right?"

"No," she admitted.

"Are you cold?" he asked as the wind whipped around them. "We can go sit in the car."

Her eyes brightened with hope and joy. "It's okay. I want to stay here a bit longer."

"What should I call you?" he asked.

A smile curved her generous lips. "My friends and family calls me Lorrie. But you can call me Riley if you want."

"No. Riley and I made memories together and I will always remember that. You're Lorraine now. We're spending this life—and all our future lives—together. We will create new memories. I want you to become my wife, Lorraine."

He waited for her hesitation or for her to outright reject the idea, saying it was too soon, that they really didn't know each other very well.

But she pressed her fingertip between his brows and a kiss on his lips. "Yes."

"Yes?"

"I know how short a life can be cut," she reminded him. "I don't want to waste any time that we could be spending together, either. I love you, and I want to spend my life with you."

"I love you, too."

It had taken twenty-five years and two lives for her, but they were finally together again. Forever.

 _ **THE END**_


End file.
